Inner Visions: Explorations in Magical Consciousness

Drury, Nevill

Drury is an Australian author and editor whose aim here is "to describe the modern magical world view in terms of its relevance to the consciousness movement, and also to examine the relationship of magic to the creative powers of mind." He describes the western magical world view and its symbolic language, and then shows how these motifs and symbols have resurfaced in the music and art of the 1970s. His own words best sum up the import of the book, which draws in part on the findings of parapsychology: "At present the art and music of the counter-culture, with its fusion of mythological and symbolic themes, indicates a new willingness to explore faculties of creativity which open inroads to states of consciousness outside previously defined boundaries"(p.126).